冷戰人文主義：顏元叔及其批評實踐

Cold War Humanism: Yan Yuanshu and His Critical Practices

台灣的外國文學研究約莫是在1960 年代末期逐漸成形。回顧這段歷史過程，顏元叔是不可繞過的里程碑，不僅僅因為他是戰後台灣外國文學研究的前行者與開拓者，更因為他的批評範式與後來的「反西方」轉向巧妙地延續著五四一代學者的矛盾與張力，放在風雲丕變的1970 年代與中國崛起前的1990 年代，顯得極為特出。透過新批評的引介與比較研究的開展，他的文學評論、雜文與短篇小說一方面與冷戰時代的文化景觀與文學品味相扣連，另一方面又在人文主義的思想路徑上開展出一條以民族意識為根底的社會寫實路線：一邊批評中國文學的「印象式批評」傳統，另一邊深化現代主義的批判意識，進而形成了一條在文化內涵上植根於西方、卻在意識型態上反西方的批評進路。顏氏獨特的批評實踐一方面折射了冷戰構造的文化政治以及文學批評的建制過程；在與西方的接軌和交鋒中，它同時提出了極為重要的在地命題：文學的目的何在？研究西方所為何來？在台灣的我們究竟該如何看待西方文學以及文學批評的作用？文學與社會（或曰「人生」）的關係又該如何理解和架接？這篇文章試圖以顏元叔的著作為中心來探索，西方或歐美作為一個知識客體，究竟在冷戰時代的台灣意謂著什麼？顏元叔文學批評的基底與方向何在？他的批評遺產對今日的外文（歐美）研究提供了什麼樣的反省？我們又該如何概括、評價與繼承？

Foreign literature studies in Taiwan were gradually formalized in the 1960s. In revisiting this history, Yan Yuan-shu represents a landmark that can neither be missed nor ignored. It is not merely because Yan was a pioneer of the field, but rather because his critical practice, and his eventual anti- Western stance, cogently rearticulated the paradoxical legacy of the May Fourth generation in relation to the West. His standpoint was thus unique in the stirring 1970s when Taiwan was still under a repressive regime and at the advent of the burgeoning 1990s as China began its “peaceful rise.” By introducing New Criticism and comparative literature to Taiwan’s academy, Yan’s writing not only was replete with the literary aesthetic of the Cold War but also explored a social realist approach that was based on national consciousness and local sensibility. His critical practice refracted the cultural political formation of the Cold War and the institutionalization of literary criticism in Taiwan by posing important questions for us: What is the function of literature and why do we study the West and its literature? How should we, as scholars and students in Taiwan, look at Western literature and understand the function of literary criticism as a Western import? What is the relationship between literature and society? By revisiting Yan’s critical writings, this article attempts to explain what the West—as an object of knowledge and an epistemic position—means to us during the Cold War era, and explore how we can inherit and advance Yan’s critical legacies for thinking about foreign literary studies today.